


He Needs To Learn

by Peasant



Series: Short Works [3]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: 1880, 1880s, Gen, No Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-08-01
Updated: 2001-08-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 18:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1277326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peasant/pseuds/Peasant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How hard was it to train Spike?</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Needs To Learn

**Author's Note:**

> Another prose piece playing out some of my ideas about Angelus. Companion piece to Have You Any Idea.

He needs to learn, my beautiful, wonderful, blue eyed boy. That savage, natural rawness, witchcraft-pale against the dark where a little flower of blood blooms. New. Waiting for me. And I want to show him everything that can grow under the stars. Let him be complete. The ideal master vampire. Worthy to be my childe.

So he needs to learn. Learn to understand mortal suffering and dread with the empathy of a lover, but with less care than for the fate of an earthworm, sliced in two by a speeding steel plough. He must learn how to drive a soul to torment and to suck the joy from the marrow of its terror, to grow strong on the power. But for himself he must fear no pain. He needs to learn how to ride the bucking energy of his gift, so that all who hear of him are in awe.

Learn how to observe without being seen, how to stalk across the night like a shadow cast by the moon and weigh up what he hunts as he does so. He must fight like a tawny wild lion, but with the cunning of a hare. Stand steady with the stamina of an ox, yet move as fast as an Arab colt. And kill as swiftly as the viper.

He needs to know who is a threat to him and who is afraid. Who he can scare off with nothing worse than a taunt, who he can kill with a snap of his fingers, who he must run from. Who he must fight to the death. And how he can tell them all apart.

He needs to learn how to charm the powdered ladies from their chambers and the bluff jesting gentlemen from their clubs. He must sweet-talk the pretty maids on their outings and the rough lads over their beers. He must understand a person entirely from the way they walk into a room. And yet let them unearth nothing of him, but that they long to know everything, though they talk together all night.

He must learn how to give orders and how to receive them, and how to choose which it should be. Yet never to loose his sense of self. He needs to know how to be a judge to others, so well that they will accept him as unquestioned jury and executioner too. And how to judge himself; yet keep his self-confidence whilst he does so.

He shall know how to make himself the light of the world to a soulless demon that was born to be a free spirit, so that any creature will do his bidding without question. And yet so little should he care for them, that he can turn his back in a second if he must; or watch them crumble into dust with a shrug. But never let them realise what he values them at.

He will acquire all tongues the humans sputter and each grunt that a demon can howl. He must be schooled in every culture on the planet, so he can travel anywhere and yet not seem a stranger. Whilst never being weakened by the need to belong.

He must pass amongst painters and poets, scientists and politicians and hold them in awe of his learning. And still be able to make a street urchin feel wise.

He must master the secret magics and rituals of our kind, to aid his powers, and yet not become a slave to their lure. For ultimately he must know, that the only strength he requires is in himself.

And let him learn how to choose companions that will keep him happy and strong and whole. And safe. How to keep growing, though never for one minute, to change and cease to be the beautiful wild boy that I have made.

But right now he needs to learn not to get blood on his clean collar when he is feeding. He’s got all eternity to discover. We might as well get the small things right first.


End file.
